Netflix's GLOW is grimy and great

Out on Friday, the half-hour comedy about the founding of TV's Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling is a campy delight

GLOW.
(Image credit: Erica Parise/Netflix)

Netflix's GLOW is a campy delight from its catchy title sequence to its neon credits. Out on Friday, the half-hour comedy about the founding of TV's Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling comes to us courtesy of Liz Flahive and Orange is the New Black's Carly Mensch, with Jenji Kohan as an executive producer. Based on a real all-women wrestling show that started in 1986, the result is an ensemble comedy with tons of '80s nostalgia and griminess. This is a world before Instagram. There are no succulents, the light is unflattering, and everyone looks greasy. If the effect is sometimes unexpectedly sexy in that aerobics and roller-rink way (with hair that's more hair-sprayed than washed), it also feels a little desperate and real. What glamor there is here is sweaty.

Alison Brie plays Ruth Wilder, an earnest actress failing in L.A. The pilot makes the point that there are no good roles for women with cheesy After-School Special didacticism, but the show thankfully veers away from anything resembling a lesson. When Ruth ends up as part of washed-up director Sam Sylvia's quest to put together some kind of women's show (he's played by Marc Maron, who was made for this part), she finds a very particular and unexpected niche: She's going to play the "heel." It's hilarious to watch Brie play the bad guy, delightful to watch her figure out her character and ultimate identity, and hilarious to watch her bring her thespian training to bear on a stereotype whose monstrosity pales in comparison to the characters the women of color are forced to play.

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Lili Loofbourow

Lili Loofbourow is the culture critic at TheWeek.com. She's also a special correspondent for the Los Angeles Review of Books and an editor for Beyond Criticism, a Bloomsbury Academic series dedicated to formally experimental criticism. Her writing has appeared in a variety of venues including The Guardian, Salon, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and Slate.